Stella McCartney

Is this a trick question? I’m being serious PLEASE HELP. It seems I’ve managed to change lanes while swapping out the Alanis Morissette CD and now there are new kids in town, going very fast, and I don’t know their names. It was either Gigi or, YOLO or something like that.

Fine, I have received enough verbal pamphlets from my more clued-in chums over samosas and beers to have vaguely mapped out the sort of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock thing involving a family called the Kardashians, and Gigi is a supermodel/mastermind footwear craftsman somewhere in that equation. Am I getting this correctly? I have – kid you not – walked, run, driven, hiked… and practically swum in these Stuart Weitzman Gigi boots, without a single blister. So, logic tells me, that Gigi is not just a pretty face. I realise this is like when my mother saw my first boyfriend’s array of chains running from his wallet to a hook on his low-slung jeans and asked him if his family sold hardware. Jumping to conclusions is my favourite session at the gym. Also, hereditary.

The reality is, these are ass-kicking boots. For instance, I kicked 984km (611mi) ass of road the other week in these very pair, trekked on my very first snow atop an Alpine lay-by, and proceeded to drive through three different countries (more on this later). From the looks of it, I could’ve run for president too, given some (read: one) of the candidates basically resemble a deflated whoopee cushion. Remember to vote, kids.

They also come with a cause: Stuart Weitzman has pledged to build three schools in Ghana, Guatemala, and Laos with the charity Pencils of Promise. Ass. Kicked.

It all starts with this line: ‘You just said [insert dream food] and my eyes went all blurry’. That’s all it takes for the office to collectively groan/sign/wail a little as knees buckle and pens to fall out of melty hand grip. It doesn’t take much, but garlicy pasta, sweet potato fries and ice-cream take the trophy in prompting the most creative noises and about eleven, maybe twelve minutes of temporary vision + hearing loss that does not help with general productivity. The news, therefore, that Häagen Dazs (SIGH) to officially supply ice-cream (AUuhhh) to Wimbledon, and create a limited-edition Strawberries & Cream Stick Bar (YAaaAS) possibly made the neighbours wonder what it is we do in this office, really.

one of the addiction of Wimbledon is getting lost in the vacuum of suspense

But noise tells everything, doesn’t it? And the lack thereof. Contrary to what I’d expected, Wimbledon is much less about the scores or the off-chance that you’ll spot Andy Murray scoffing down a banana in an information booth, or Federer adjusting his headband at the men’s (both of these need to be a Snapchat filter). The real joy is getting lost in the deafening silence between a forehand hit and a slice, or the split-second of hush before the board updates the scores. It’s the collective, gentle gasp, and a thunder of hoot-less clapping after a match-set that makes Wimbledon so addictive. Every single spectator leans in, decisively tracking the yellow ball as it tours the court with every hit, completely lost in the moment. Add a Häagen Dazs ice-cream* to this equation and you’ll need to lay down from mirth overdose at some point.

*If Wimbledon is not one of your summer plans, the limited-edition Strawberries & Cream Stick Bar is also available exclusively at Selfridges during the Championships fortnight (London Oxford Street, Manchester Trafford Park and Birmingham Bullring) – just make sure to go by the Wimbledon finals weekend.

Hands up, if you too took a pair of blunt scissors to your jeans in middle school, cut a slit up the sides and haphazardly stitched floral/plaid(/corduroy!?) fabric to make flares. We used to call it morning glory jeans – my mother used to call it WHY IS THE SEWING MACHINE BROKEN. Fast forward a few years, skinny jeans dominate the denim world, and I guarantee you took the same blunt scissors and ripped up holes up and down the legs of a victim pair. Your mother may have tried sewing them up at one point too.

What’s clear is that these are two denim styles that punctuate my youth, and still reign a hefty side of my closet. I must own a billion iterations of the ‘skinny jean’ and one too many stripper-heels now to make some of the zillion flares I own work. Point is, years later, they still work – as attempted in these looks I’ve been abusing this season – in collaboration with Paige Denim at Selfridges, which has allowed me to glorify the two staple jeans of the last 15 years of my life in a wee digitorial that I had such fun putting together with my team.

I am a 90‘s kid. What this means is that my primary excitement in life usually consisted of some form of waiting or another, be it in the 3-page hand-written letters from a pen-pal in Japan, or sighting my favourite song on MTV. If you too are a 90‘s kid you will have sung the anthem of the modem connecting to 56kbps, and understand why the PC had to be left on overnight for a flick to download. Joking aside (at arm‘s reach though), with the rise of insta-everything and deliver-yesterday convenience, we are forgetting about this glorious thing called patience, and the stories that happen while you wait.

You all know my thoughts towards the brands I like to work with, they have one thing in common: the value of patience; of travelling to the ends of the earth to obtain only the best ingredients – ingredients not available on Amazon Prime that‘s for certain – and treating with care and respect. Bombay Sapphire is one of those companies: full of character, story and passion – all bottled up in layers of flavour, into a clean London Dry Gin. So, here‘s a visual collection of stories that make up the notes of the extraordinary, new Star of Bombay, shot in my local tropics: Kew Gardens.

Star of Bombay is created with two new botanicals, Bergamot Peels and Ambrette Seeds – elevating the exceptional balance of Bombay Sapphire and taking the CAPTIVATING FLAVOUR of London Dry Gin to a new dimension